Two days after deep-sixing his European tour citing "exhaustion," Eminem has confirmed through his publicist that he is in drug rehabilitation.
The Grammy-winning rapper "is in the hospital under doctors' care," Interscope Records spokesman Dennis Dennehy said in a brief statement Thursday. "He is being treated for dependency on sleep medication."
No further details were released. However, Star magazine reported that the rapper, accompanined by two bodyguards, had checked in to a facility in his native Michigan on Tuesday.
That was the same day Dennehy released a statement announcing the cancellation of the 10-date European leg of the rapper's Anger Management 3 tour. At the time, Dennehy would only say the 32-year-old performer nixed the trip due to "exhaustion, complicated by other medical issues" and that he was being treated for the undisclosed maladies.
Eminem has rapped about the wonders of LSD, has reportedly popped Ecstasy and even sports a Vicodin tattoo on his left arm, but he had claimed to have reformed his bad-boy lifestyle over the past few years.
His European sojourn was set to kick off Sept. 1 in Hamburg and wrap Sept. 17 in Dublin. The dates won't likely be rescheduled.
Eminem had finished the U.S. run of the tour, which also featured 50 Cent, Lil Jon and members of the G-Unit crew, Aug. 13 in his hometown of Detroit.
The trek had been marred by a major bus accident en route to Denver July 13, in which several members of the tour, including Eminem's deejay, were hospitalized.
News of Eminem's rehab stint comes amid some other trouble for the rapper. After having weathered salvos from his mother, grandmother and ex-wife, Eminem now faces a lawsuit from his aunt and uncle, Betty and Jack Schmitt, who claim he is trying to evict them from a house he had built for them and renegged on a promise to pay them a yearly stipend of $100,000. In their suit filed Aug. 12 in Michigan's Macomb County Court, the couple are seeking $350,000 in cash and ownership of the property, according to documents posted at the Smoking Gun.
In July, the Detroit Free Press reported the rapper otherwise known as Marshall Mathers III would be retiring from recording and performing following the European tour and instead focus on producing other artists.
But Mathers angrily dismissed the report, telling MTV.com, "When I say I'm taking a break, I'm taking a break from my music to go in the studio and produce my other artists and put their albums out.
"When I know my next move, I'll tell everyone my next move."
If indeed he retires, he will go out as the best selling hip-hop artist of all time. His four solo studio albums--1999's The Slim Shady LP, 2000's The Marshall Mathers LP, 2002's The Eminem Show and Encore--have moved more than 25 million copies in the U.S. alone and generated sales of more than $1 billion.
He's also won nine Grammys to go along with his Best Song Oscar for the 8 Mile track "Lose Yourself."
As an A&R man for his Shady Records, he guided 50 Cent's monster-selling debut release, Get Rich or Die Tryin', and has shepherded releases for his G-Unit posse and his Detroit rap crew D12.